How to build a digital PR strategy for SMEs and start-ups

Join us as we take the plunge into digital PR and learn how a strategic approach to public relations for your business is essential to any SME or start-up. In this article you’ll find practical steps to building and executing your first ever digital PR campaign, so, let’s get started!

What is digital PR?

Digital Public Relations (PR) leverages online channels to build brand awareness and maintain a positive brand sentiment through planned tactics and activities. Digital PR can also be implemented with the aim to improve your brand’s website SEO value, drive customer engagement, and attain new leads through a wide range of activities, such as:

• Content creation and distribution
  Creating fresh and custom content of exceptional quality that captivates both media interest and social media shares.
• Link building
  Securing backlinks from respected brand websites to enhance search engine rankings and bolster credibility.
• Social media marketing
  Engaging with target audiences on an array of social media platforms and building relationships with influencers.
• Online reputation management
  Monitoring online mentions for reputation management and responding to negative feedback in a timely and professional manner.
• Online crisis management
  Developing crisis strategies to mitigate negative impact and implementing them during periods of negative brand sentiment.

What is the difference between traditional PR and digital PR?

Whilst traditional and digital PR retain similar qualities and goals, the method of the delivery varies; traditional PR focuses on implementing strategies via traditional media outlets, whilst digital PR focuses on utilising online platforms for communication and outreach.

• Traditional PR
  The classical approach of managing public relations, involving activities such as press releases, print media, television and radio interviews, and in-person events to reach and influence the public.
• Digital PR
  The modern approach of managing public relations, utilising online channels such as social media platforms, blogs, and online publications to build brand awareness, engage with the audience, and manage reputation.

Both methods play a crucial role in growing and maintaining your brand’s reputation and market presence. Now that we know what digital PR is, let’s look at how you can start fashioning your brand’s own custom PR strategy…

8 steps to creating a digital PR strategy for SMEs and start-ups

Our team of digital marketing PR specialists have put together these tips to help you propel your business towards success. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur with a super cool start-up, or a worldly-wise established SME, these steps will pave the way for strategic PR communication and visibility across the digital landscape.

Step One: Reflect on the current market and your business goals

Before you take the plunge into putting a digital PR strategy in place, take the time to reflect on the current market landscape and your brand’s positioning – what is it that you offer that separates you from your competitors?

You should take this time to assess your brand’s value and USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) to ensure you’re not missing out on any golden opportunities and how you can use these to reach your business goals. From this, you can begin to formulate a detailed, step-by-step plan outlining the necessary actions required to achieve your marketing objectives through digital PR.

This approach will pave the way for a more effective and targeted marketing strategy.

Step Two: Identify your target audience and channels to build ‘Audience Personas’

In any business endeavour, it’s essential to always place your customer first; think about your ideal and actual target audience – this includes any prospective and current customers. Slowly, you will begin to build a profile of your customers which you can use to create formulated audience personas.

Audience personas are fictitious customers that embody key behaviours, needs and pain points that your real customers face. Developing these personas will help you to consider the types of media channels they are likely to engage with as well as any key personalities they may follow, such as influencers or role models. Once you have identified your target audience and channels and have developed your audience personas, you can begin to craft your PR efforts to align with your audience personas’ preferences to maximise engagement.

Step Three: Make a start on your competitor analysis

One way to make sure you get ahead of the game is to take a sneaky peek at what your competitors are doing and assess how successful their approach is. One of the best means to do this is through a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to identify any niches or subjects which could enhance your own brand’s marketing efforts. Equally, this analysis will help you to understand which topics aren’t so lucrative or best to avoid.

Having reflected on your brand, defined your audience personas, and having analysed your key competitors, you can begin to consider how best to deliver your strategy in step four…

Step Four: Consider your tone of voice and brand messaging

Now that you have an understanding of your audience’s key goals and pain points, you can formulate a list of essential topics and key messages which will appeal to their interest to garner engagement and ultimately build your customer base.

One of the pitfalls as an emerging SME or start-up is believing that you lack noteworthy news or knowledge to share with your audience – this couldn’t be farther from the truth. While it's important to recognise that not every internal development is newsworthy, it doesn't diminish the significance of sharing relevant updates, whether they are directly related to your business or not. Industry-related news such as developments in research, technology and methodology can go a long way into gaining new followers. This is a technique known as ‘Newsjacking’ and is a tried and tested method used by enterprises of all sizes to secure media coverage.

Newsjacking Example A local plumbing and heating company could capitalise on a breaking news article about an upcoming snowstorm by producing an array of social media posts and/or blog articles. This reactive approach will help that company reach more prospective leads and build credibility without necessarily promote their heating services or products directly.

By employing newsjacking as part of your digital PR strategy tactics, new businesses and start-ups can capture the attention of prominent outlets, even without a well-established brand.

Step Five: Build a media list

Building a media list as an SME or start-up should be one of your top priorities. Having the ability to dictate and control a story through a media contact will give you more leverage to use media attention for good.

A media list is essentially an address book of key media-based connections who you can call upon when needed to help you release favourable content. Some of the best media lists tend to include an array of specialisms, including journalists, influencers, bloggers and even celebrities. If you’re a budding start-up, you may lack some of these connections, therefore the best way to build-up your media list is to research journalists or other publications that specialise in your industry or niche.

Once you’ve found the journalist or publication you would like to reach out to, you can follow these steps to increase the likelihood of them accepting your content:

• Make the pitch personal
  Cite a piece of their work that you found insightful or enjoyable or identify one that aligns well with your own story, either complementing or serving as a follow-up. Demonstrate why covering your story would be advantageous for both them and their readers.
• Grab their attention
  This encompasses everything from the email subject line to the article headline. Recognising that different outlets have a distinctive tone of voice means avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach, and instead, researching how each publication or journalist communicates with their audience. Strive to mirror their tone and style for a more tailored and effective approach.
• Make content they can’t refuse
  Your content should be compelling for both your prospective readers and the journalist and/or publication you are reaching out to. Include teaser imagery or infographics in your pitch email to entice your recipients into agreeing a collaboration between you and them.

Step Six: Create a clear timeline for your digital PR campaign

Make sure your campaign stays on track by establishing a comprehensive timeline of both short and long-term initiatives. This will also help you to manage any budgetary requirements, such as internal resource and secondary costs such as PPC campaigns or social posts.

To keep your campaign topics relevant and attractive to prospective audiences, we strongly recommend implementing a digital PR calendar to keep your eyes peeled on any industry developments or news which you can capitalise on.

Step Seven: Set realistic KPIs for your strategy

It’s important to continually measure the success of your strategy throughout its lifetime to ensure you are maximising your ROI (Return On Investment). The best method of doing this is to establish your goals and KPIs at the start of your campaign.

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) should ideally be measured and assessed quarterly for both relevance and as an indicator of success. Some examples of KPIs you could use to measure your digital PR endeavours include, but are not limited to:

• Web traffic
  Visitors to your website, social media pages and follower growth will provide a decent indication of how well a digital PR campaign has performed in raising awareness and credibility of your brand.
• Search visibility
  A sustained increase in brand search visibility shown within your Google Search Console account can also correlate with digital PR activity and indicate how well a campaign has performed.
• New backlinks
  Check your online coverage for any new links from authoritative websites. Does this correlate with any ranking changes, traffic increases or more visibility shown within Google Search Console?
• Media coverage
  Track the number of times your brand is mentioned in online and offline media outlets to help you understand how much expose your brand is getting.
• Social media engagement
  Individual social media platform metrics can also provide a good indication of how many additional people you’ve managed to reach and/or engage with.
• UTM tracking
  Track any links used in the campaign using UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters. This will tell you which types of users have visited your website via these links and if they have engaged with your site in a meaningful way.

It’s essential that you define how you plan to measure your success before you launch a digital PR campaign (or any marketing campaign for that matter).

Step Eight: Continually analyse your budget and resource

Managing your campaign’s budget effectively involves considering how much resource you may need to utilise to execute a successful PR strategy. Resources could be defined as dedicated employee hours, specialised equipment, access to necessary facilities, and/or materials pivotal to campaign implementation.

If done correctly you’ll maximise the impact of your efforts, ensuring a cost-effective and efficient approach to achieving strategy goals.

Ready to get your digital PR campaign rolling?

We hope you have found this comprehensive guide to digital PR strategy for SMEs and start-ups beneficial. You should now be equipped with practical steps that you can implement and use to help construct your first PR strategy.

If you need help creating and launching your first digital PR campaign, our experienced digital marketing team is ready to work with you to help you get started.